Delaware River dredging to proceed under $15 million award from Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania will provide $15 million to deepen the Delaware River channel off a portion of the Salem County shoreline — a project New Jersey officials have steadfastly opposed and thought was dead given a lack of federal funding.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett announced the award from the commonwealth’s capital projects fund on Wednesday during a visit to the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority’s Packer Avenue Marine Terminal. The Philadelphia port authority has been the local sponsor for the deepening project being handled by the Army Corps of Engineers.

In addition to the $15 million in direct funding, the regional port authority is attempting to secure “unencumbered funds from the Army Corps of Engineers that could be assigned to this project,” said William B. McLaughlin, director of government and public affairs for the authority.

The funds are enough to deepen the river’s current 40 foot channel by five feet for an approximate five mile area between the Delaware Memorial Bridge and north of Wilmington, said Ed Voigt, spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers office in Philadelphia. The dredge spoils are earmarked for a federally-owned tract along the Delaware in the Pedricktown section of Oldmans Township, Voigt said.

McLaughlin said his agency “is trying” to launch the project “as soon as possible.”

The project is anticipated to be completed before March — when such work would cease for fish spawning and other ecological reasons, he said.

The Army Corps dredged 11 miles of the river channel south of the Delaware Memorial twin spans in 2010.

The dredging project was authorized by Congress in 1992 and would cover 103 miles of river channel from the mouth of the Delaware Bay to Philadelphia at a cost of $305 million. Pennsylvania — which has committed to cover 35 percent of the project’s cost — has now provided $45 million to date. The federal commitment has been $77 million to date, but due to what McLaughlin said was “opposition” by New Jersey, only $22 million has been actually allocated.

He called the project “an investment for the whole region.”

“With ports up and down the East Coast deepening their navigation channels, Pennsylvania’s international seaport in Philadelphia must keep pace to remain competitive in the growing international market,” Corbett said at the Packer Marine Terminal. “A deeper river opens the way for world trade — an economic high tide of sorts.”

New Jersey’s opposition has been on a mix of environmental fears and doubt that the investment would produce a suitable return in new jobs and commerce.

U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews, D-1st Dist., of Haddon Heights, had previously noted that no federal funds toward the dredging of the Delaware were allocated in the last two budgets. “Earmarks,” a favorite practice of Congress to finance projects by attaching requests to legislation, has been considered taboo for the past year.

“The way to create jobs at the port is to build warehouses, roads and rails — not to literally throw money into a hole in the river,” Andrews offered on Wednesday.

“Without federal tax dollars, this project will not happen. We will continue to stop those federal dollars and this project will not happen.”

Philadelphia Regional Port Authority Executive Director James T. McDermott Jr. suggested the 11 miles of dredging work done in 2010 is proof the work could be done safely and would benefit the region.

“The negative environmental impact predicted by our critics did not occur, and we’re already seeing positive economic signs from potential port users,” McDermott said. “We’ve told the truth about this project from day one, and we must see it forward through completion.”